run, run fast as you can
by purple.cat.princess
Summary: He wasn't entirely sure why. He didn't know what it was going to accomplish. But he just knew, that with every beat of his feet bouncing against the ground, he was supposed to run faster. So run Wally West, and you might just have a chance.


Run faster. That command was pounding through his head faster and harder than his feet hit the ground. Then his feet stopped hitting the ground altogether and his mind kept pounding. Run faster. Run faster and faster and don't ever slow down because slow down and you'll destroy everything. So keep running Wally West, run like your life depends on it because it does. And he did as he was told, because Wally West kind of liked not being dead. But he was, wasn't he? Dead. Not alive anymore. Ceased to be a part of the living world.

He had felt it hadn't he? When he was just… evaporated by the machine because he hadn't been fast enough? Run faster, Wally West, your life depended on it. But he didn't run fast enough so wasn't he dead? So why did he still feel like he was running hundred, a thousand, a million miles an hour across the Earth without his feet touching the ground and the only rhythm he had to go on being the sound of the words thumping against his skull. Run, run, fast as you can, can't catch him, he's the Wall Man.

It wasn't long until he realized he was still running circles, but the machine was done and the bright, bright snow began to fade. No, that was wrong. His eyes were adjusting to this fast place where everything was too bright for him to look around. So he wanted to stop. But that thought rang so loud he nearly tripped. No, no, run Wally West, run if you want to live.

Everything was slower around him, or maybe he was faster, too fast. But then his mind would wander, he'd think about something and swear he was only on it for a half a second, then it would be different and no one was there. Wally ran far, he literally stepped on every patch of the surface of the Earth just to keep running. Faster, faster Wally and you might just stay alive. He never felt tired, not anymore. And sometimes it got too bright for him to see where he was running, but he never ran into anything. He learned that early on. His whole body was moving fast enough that he just slide through it all, and soon he learned more tricks.

It was kind of like watching a ceiling fan. But you have to run faster than a ceiling fan, Wally, if you want to stay alive. If he kept his eyes on one spot, and followed it while he turned in circles then he could focus on it. It being Artemis mostly. Except when she was in the Watchtower, then he couldn't follow her into space. But he would spin circles around her for days, or maybe minutes. Time was getting more and more confusing in this bright, bright plane of existence he seemed to have entered. But time wasn't important because he still wasn't going fast enough and getting distracted by watching her wouldn't keep him alive. He watched her smile and laugh and cry and scream and fight and flip and slide through the air then he would lose the spot he was focusing on and be spinning around a Chinese rice plantation and spend hours? Minutes? Not years, she looked too young for it to be years of searching for her. Maybe it was for him, he couldn't exactly use a mirror.

Mirrors would slow you down Wally West and if you want to live _run faster_. He didn't even know how fast he was going, sound? Light? Some new speed no one had thought up? How did going any faster keep him alive? He didn't know. Just that running faster was going to get him somewhere. So once he dared to break the voice's rules. He slowed down. Just for a step, just one half step and he almost died. He felt it. He heard the voice. A voice of God? Some alien who had plans for him? Dick Grayson? Who knew? Who cared? He just knew deep in his bones, run faster, faster Wally West and you may just get out of this alive. So spin circles around Artemis while she grieved you. Run around Bart and Barry and show them how much faster you were than them now. Run through Dick and try and figure out what he was doing since he quit.

Just.

Don't.

Stop.

Running.


End file.
